The invention relates to basketball player training devices or aids for basketball players, and more particularly to aids or devices for training basketball players in the proper methods of shooting baskets.
A major problem in training young basketball players is that of initiating the use of proper shooting techniques which thereafter become habitual and are automatically followed as the players' shooting skills are developed. The novice has a tendency to aim and shoot the ball at too low a level for proper control of the ball trajectory and has the further tendency, when shooting the ball from the desired higher levels, to rely too much on the wrist action of both arms in projecting the ball toward the basket. The use of both arms to project the ball toward the basket is undesirable because one arm usually dominates and over powers the other. This causes the ball to take on an improper trajectory.
It is known that if the power for propelling the basketball toward the basket is provided by the dominant arm while the other arm serves to guide the ball as it is being projected, a proper trajectory is more frequently attained.
Devices for training the basketball player to project the ball toward the basket when the arms are at a desired high level are known. (See U.S. Pat. No. 3,820,703) Such devices however are bulky and cumbersome and fail to urge the player to limit use of its subservient arm to that of guiding the ball along the trajectory so that the propelling force eminates from the dominant arm. As such, there is a need for improved devices for training basketball players in the proper methods of shooting baskets and which not only emphasize the need for shooting the ball at a high level but for the use of the dominant arm as the source of power for propelling the basketball along the trajectory to the basket.